There are 5 emotions that I cultivate on purpose in myself to make my marriage better every day. I suggest you do, too.
Contrary to what it may feel like right now, emotions don’t just come and go randomly, or because of things happening outside of us in our life.
Emotions are not out of our realm of control.
If you’re like, “yeah, right”, I get it. It may feel like someone comes along (your partner?!?) and says something and an emotion just lands in your body because of it. It seems very mysterious and very much out of your control. Am I right?
I used to feel that way, too. But I don’t have that experience anymore, since learning...well, what feels like the key to the universe and love: Emotional Agency--the power to take back control over, and to direct, my emotions.
Yes. We actually can choose-- on purpose-- to experience the emotions we want! Including ones that will serve us in deepening intimacy and making our relationship more of what we want it to be.
Although so many different emotions can be useful in that goal, there are 5 specific ones --Think of them as the 5 Emotional Warriors for Love--that will help you to have a much better marriage when you learn to purposefully enlist them (even if you can enlist them just 10% more-- your marriage
will benefit hugely!).
Here they are, the 5 C’s:
1. Curiosity
2. Certainty
3. Calm
4. Connection
5. Courage
I will be sharing more in depth over the coming weeks about how each one can help you in your relationship and how to purposefully bring it into your life more, in order to deepen the connection and love you experience in your marriage.
But for now here's a quick introduction to each one of the 5 C’s can help us in our love lives!
1) Feeling CURIOUS helps us in so many ways in a relationship. It gets us asking questions and finding answers. It helps us understand what’s going on inside ourselves. It helps us understand our partner. Allowing ourselves to feel curious brings more awareness and compassion and healthy communication right into our relationship. (More on this here)
2) CERTAINTY is a feeling (one less commonly acknowledged). It’s most close to a sense of deep confidence in something. A sense of certainty in myself, certainty in my power to shift things between my husband and I, and certainty in the relationship-- all of these help bring security and an ability to work through things and improve things on purpose. Certainty is the fuel that gives us our power to create change and keep love alive, even through hardship.
3) Feeling CALM is essential, especially for HSP. It allows us to access the deeply loving deeply wonderful parts of our trait. It allows us to see clearly, choose wisely, and love freely.
4) Feeling CONNECTION is the essence of being in a relationship. It’s what we all want most. Connection brings us to love, physical intimacy. Emotional intimacy, and feeling close with each other. It’s the glue that keeps us motivated to navigate difficulties and evolve and deepen our love for all the days to come.
5) COURAGE is a precursor to improving things in your marriage. Especially if yours isn’t feeling great right now. We need courage to take action, to take any step towards making our marriage how we want it to be. Courage allows us to be vulnerable and say the hard thing, make that first re-connecting gesture, apologize, initiate intimacy, make the hard choice, take that risk in the name of having the love you desire in your life.
Which one (or more) do you think you need to cultivate more of on purpose these days?
How might you encourage more of it into your life?
Your own wise self probably has some ideas about this, so listen to your own answers!
I’ll be sharing some more specifics for each one soon, so keep a look out!